There were only our two selves of our little company, and to be thus
alone with her was not merely like a beginning of intimacy, but also on
her part--as though she had come there solely to please me, and in such
weather--it seemed to me as touching as if, on one of those days on which
she had been invited to a party, she had given it up in order to come to
me in the Champs-Elysees; I acquired more confidence in the vitality, in
the future of a friendship which could remain so much alive amid the
torpor, the solitude, the decay of our surroundings; and while she dropped
pellets of snow down my neck, I smiled lovingly at what seemed to me at
once a predilection that she shewed for me in thus tolerating me as her
travelling companion in this new, this wintry land, and a sort of loyalty
to me which she preserved through evil times. Presently, one after
another, like shyly bopping sparrows, her friends arrived, black against
the snow. We got ready to play and, since this day which had begun so
sadly was destined to end in joy, as I went up, before the game started,
to the friend with the sharp voice whom I had heard, that first day,
calling Gilberte by name, she said to me: "No, no, I'm sure you'd much
rather be in Gilberte's camp; besides, look, she's signalling to you.
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